10 June 2012

Review: Help! For Writers by Roy Peter Clark

Help! For Writers by Roy Peter Clark book cover
I had reserved Help! For Writers - 210 Solutions to the Problems Every Writer Faces by Roy Peter Clark at the library for so many months that I forget now where I saw the recommendation for it, but having read it now, I'm a little disappointed.

The book promises 210 solutions however I found that Clark really just described them and talked about himself, and his own writing a whole lot of the time.  His insistent reference to the writer as 'she' and 'her' all the time was both puzzling and annoying and I found most of his hints and tips were common sense and nothing new.

Clark seems to love his typewriter, index cards, drop files, folders, notebooks and archive boxes (especially his drop files and index cards) but didn't once mention different applications or modern methods of writing on a laptop.  Nor did he make mention of any websites or online communities for writers; presumably because these can become out of date so quickly, however this book was published in September 2011.

If you want old school advice on writing peppered with the occasional reference to Shakespeare, other authors and Clark's own writing, then this is the book for you.

My rating = *

Carpe Librum!

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